"He deserves to live in even a better house," I mused, as I turned away; and just then I was clapped upon the shoulder with a "Helloa, my old friend"--the telegraph operator. I shook hands with him, and at once he began to tell me of his affairs. "Getting along all right," he said. "Haven't got quite as much freedom as I used to have, but I reckon it's better for me. Wife thinks so much of me that she's jealous of the boys--don't want me to stay out with them at night. Don't reckon there's anything more exacting than a rag. But I had to have one. Without calico there ain't much real fun in this life. But enough of calico's society is about the enoughest enough a man can fetch up in his mind. Tell you what--I'll run on home and come back, and then you can go with me." "No, I couldn't think of putting you to so much trouble." "Won't be any trouble. Simply don't want to surprise her, you know." "I'll call on you before long, but now I must go to the tavern." "All right, and if I can get off I'll come over to see you. And I'll tell you what we'll do along about 11 o'clock. We'll go over to Atcherson's store with a lot of fellers and cook some eggs in the top of a paste-board hat box. Ever cook them that way? It's a world beater. Just break the eggs in the lid of the box and put it on the stove and there you are. Finest stuff you ever eat. But while you're eating you mustn't let them tell that jug story. Couldn't eat a bite after that. Well, I leave you here." Fearing that the operator's "rag" might fail in the strict enforcement of the regulations that had been thrown about the night-time movements of her husband, that he might break out of the circle of his wife's fondness and call on me at the tavern, I left that place soon after supper and resumed my walk about the town. In some distant place where the land was dry a shower of rain had fallen, for the air was quickened with the coming of that dusty, delicious smell, that reminiscent incense which more than the perfume of flower or shrub takes us back to the lanes and the sweet loitering places of youth. Happiness will not bear a close inspection; to be flawless it must be viewed from a distance--we must look forward to something longed for, or backward to some time remembered; and my happiness on this night was not perfect, for a sense of loneliness curdled it with regret, but here and there, as I walked along, I found myself in an ecstasy--my nerves thrilled one another like crossed wires, electrified. I knew that it might be a long time before I should hear from Guinea, but I was still drunk with the newness of the feeling that she loved me.